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bluetooth speakers/headset without delay

Submitted by Kristoffer Gustafsson on 18 June, 2017

Hi.
Some months ago I bought a Little Bluetooth headset for my iphone.
the problem is that there is very much delay when using the phone.
I can't type sms or anything like that because of the delay.
the same thing happened when I tried my friends speaker. creative muvo.
there was so much delay so that I couldn't use the phone with voiceover at all.
what can I buy that works?
Does the bose qc35 have such a delay?
I tried them a Little some time ago, sounded good.
/Kristoffer

#2 Hi,

Submitted by Justin on 18 June, 2017

Hi,
There's no way to get rid of the BT delay, except use a wire jack to connect your headphones to the iPhone via lightning or the headphone jack, if equipped. Sorry about that, but that's just how it goes with BT audio.

#4 W1 chip and more advanced protocols

Submitted by Amber on 19 June, 2017

I used to think that a terrible delay was inevitable using Bluetooth. What I have recently found to be true is that, while a delay will always occur with Bluetooth devices, devices such as the Powerbeats 3 and the Beats X headphones, which are equipped with the new W1 chip from Apple, have less delay than any bluetooth headphones or speakers I've ever used. Also, I have found that devices with more advanced Bluetooth protocols have less of a delay as well. For example, my Logitech UE mobile boom box and boom box both are older speakers I bought in 2013. My Motorola sliver and my LG HBS750 are also older headsets. All of these have a delay that is hard to deal with, especially, like you said, when typing. But my JBL Charge 3, which is new, has a little less of a delay. Nothing beats devices that have the W1 chip in them though, and sadly, the only ones that have it, to the best of my knowledge, are Beats. I hope Apple lets third parties make use of this chip very soon. But do some research on the W1 chip, maybe there's something I don't know about that has it. My other speakers and headsets used to have a half second or more of delay. With both my Beats headsets with the W1 chip, the delay is a fourth of a second or less.

#5 Hi,

Submitted by Justin on 19 June, 2017

Hi,
The delay is there on jabra move headphones, but it's not a big deal for using the mac. i honestly don't notice a delay at all on my end with that headset. I had an older Jam transit headset and used it on iOS sometimes. The delay was noticeable, but not a deal breaker. Also, the W1 chip is available as far as I know only on the beats and on the apple airpods. I think the delay is honestly something that we just need to deal with until the W1 chip gets into other stuff, which I doubt it will.

#6 I agree here. The delay will

Submitted by Brian Giles on 19 June, 2017

I agree here. The delay will always be there, but the newer ones have better bluetooth so there's not as much of a delay. I have an older soundlink speaker that I got in 2012 and it's hard to use with VoiceOver. I absolutely love my QC35 headphones though. They don't have to reconnect as often, so you don't get the beginning of songs of words spoken by VoiceOver being cut off near as much. The one potentially deal breaking annoyance is that whenever you pause music or other audio, all output gets cut off including VoiceOer. I've figured out that if you wait 5-10 seconds after you pause, VoiceOver comes back. This seems to be a firmware issue, and oddly enough only affects iOS AFAIK. I and I'm sure others have tried to make Bose aware of it, but I don't expect them to fix it.

#7 Really? I thought all the w1

Submitted by Brian Giles on 19 June, 2017

Really? I thought all the w1 chip does is make the bluetooth work over a longer distance. You may have given me another reason to consider getting some Air Pods. I considered the beats solo 3, but I'm not a big fan of onear headphones, and the last pair of beats I had didn't last very long so I got the qc35 instead. Too bad Apple's Air Pods are still ridiculously hard to find though.

#8 Bluetooth Delay

I've owned several Bluetooth headsets and speakers over the past few years, and have had mixed results with audio delay. The Backbeat Sense headphones, while techie, were some of the worst for this.

What I've found lately, is that you want to buy devices that have Bluetooth 4.1. Every device I've tried that has this newer protocol seems to have far less lag. You'll always have a little lag with Bluetooth, but with newer 4.1 devices, I hardly notice it. And I regularly input text and do other tasks where this would be very noticeable.